3. I Don't Expect Mycroft Holmes To Be A Super-Sherlock
I love Mark Gatiss on Sherlock. He does a great job, both as a writer and as an actors in playing Mycroft Holmes. While Mycroft is written in the books as having similar skills to Sherlock, and actually in the BBC modern retelling it's a fairly straightforward version of the character. But over the years in the various versions of the stories, Mycroft has been messed with quite a bit. I'm used to those other versions; I like my Mycroft to be sensible yes, but no genius. He should have certain skills, but also you shouldn't know where his loyalties lie. With the Gatiss version of Mycroft, his loyalties were not obvious at the start but with season three we know that both he and Sherlock are on the same side. Elementary benefits from this not yet being so clear. This might be exactly how the book portrays Mycroft, but I'm simply not used to the idea. In Elementary, Mycroft benefits from being played by Rhys Ifans, who is doing some of the best acting of his life right now both onscreen and on the London stage. He was a masterstroke of casting, and the involvement between his version of Mycroft and Joan Watson led to additional tension between the trio. The Elementary Mycroft is a restaurateur who for reasons unknown is trying to bring Sherlock home to London. The two have barely spoken for years and only during the course of the show have they reopened communication. We don't know Mycroft's motives yet in this version, but I suspect they will get a lot more complicated before we are done. Yet Mycroft comes across as an equal, but for different reasons and with intelligence in different areas. This makes the character more interesting than simply a more cunning version of Sherlock with all the same abilities.
